64 countries have religious symbols on their flags.

64 countries have religious symbols on their flags.

Some of the most “secular” countries in the world continue to have religious symbols on their flags, according to the Pew Research Center.………….

Canada’s- flag contained a religious symbol prior to 1965, when it was replaced with a maple leaf……………..

Here’s an excerpt from a Pew news release that came out today:

A third of the world’s 196 countries currently have national flags that include religious symbols, according to a new Pew Research analysis.

Of the 64 countries in this category, about half have Christian symbols (48%) and about a third include Islamic religious symbols (33%), with imagery on flags from the world’s two largest religious groups appearing across several regions.

Christian symbols are found on 31 national flags from Europe, Asia and the Pacific and the Americas. The United Kingdom’s “Union Jack,” for example, includes the crosses of St. George, St. Patrick and St. Andrew.

Some Commonwealth countries continue to incorporate the Union Jack as a part of their own flags, including Fiji, Tuvalu, Australia and New Zealand.

Spain, Greece, Norway and the Dominican Republic are among the other countries with Christian national symbols.

Islamic symbols are found on the flags of 21 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, the Asia-Pacific region and the Middle East and North Africa….

Buddhist or Hindu religious symbols appear on five national flags; in three of those cases, the symbols apply to both religions….

Israel is the lone country with Jewish symbols on its national flag, including the Star of David and a white and blue striped background representative of a traditional Jewish prayer shawl.